Chapter 1: The Ice Breaks 1930s

• Dillon Freeman was just an infant when his father died because he was a labor organizer for a coal miners union.

• Dillon in now almost fifteen and lives with his mother, Carrie, in a mining community in West Virginia in the 1930s.

• Dillon's cousin, Rachel, is sixteen and has had a crush on Dillon for because years.

• Rachel's mother, Fiona, wants Rachel to have a better life than she did plus she tells Rachel that she can't marry Dillon because they are cousins and their babies would not be right.
• In the winter Dillon is ice fishing when Rachel, on her mule, Mag, falls into the icy waters.

• Dillon tries to help Rachel but his mother pulls his back for fear that he will drown in the process.

• Mag is able to drag Rachel to shore, and Dillon and his mother carry...